The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted everyone’s sense of stability, structure, and sense of control. This long-drawn-out time of uncertainty, combined with the social distancing that keeps us away from family, friends, and normal activities, has taken a significant toll on us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically. However, there is hope for the New Year, and this blog can help you nurture it.
Hope is always important in our lives, but now it is more critical than ever. Hope can help you fight off depression and anxiety. Hope can motivate you to achieve your goals. Hope can help you be more resilient when we face challenging times. Hope can help you focus on the reality that you need to keep yourself safe by taking the health precautions recommended by the CDC and state and local governments.
Below are some helpful steps to take to reflect on 2020 and have hope in 2021:
1 st Step - Self-Reflect and Review Our Experiences From 2020:
Pause and Acknowledge – Speak in truth and acknowledge what our experience was like this past year. Recognize that there have been challenges, difficulties, sadness, and many things that we had no control over. It’s ok. To reflect on these things, and we also need to choose to move forward, as well.
Identify the Gifts and Positive Experiences – Acknowledge that there also were some things that we experienced that may have been positive, lessons learned, opportunities given, and personal growth. So it’s important to take some ownership of these things as well instead of focusing only on the negatives.
2 nd Step - Determine What We Want for 2021:
Be Intentional – Incorporate what we want to focus on for the New Year. We can evolve and develop a new sense of self and be realistic about what we can change, yet not expect to change everything. Be careful about referring to Resolutions and instead be willing to have Evolutions in the New Year. Select 1- 2 things that were lessons that can apply towards wisdom and growth in this NewYear.
Expect and Hope for Good things to come – Love unconditionally, learn self-
acceptance, improve self-worth and self-esteem, reduce stress, anxiety and
depression, offer grace to yourself, and recognize life offers us choices, and we
can decide how we want to live it.
3 rd Step – Evolving In The New Year Questions (Answer the following questions and share them with someone you really trust):
Three Lessons I learned in 2020?
The gifts of 2020 that I am carrying over into 2021?
My thoughts about evolving instead of resolving?
A few things I hope to grow through in 2021?
My hope for 2021?
Make these a part of your goals for the New Year and celebrate that you made it through last year which was not easy. Believe in yourself and know that you are stronger than you may realize and have much to offer and accomplish in the New Year.
It often takes more courage to have hope than not because you are being asked to look into the unknown and still believe all things are possible. Sometimes it is only hope that feeds our spirits and launches us to find the strength and power to carry on.
If we are hopeful, can bad things still happen in life? Yes, but we must remember good things happen too, and sitting around feeling hopeless doesn’t help anybody. Feeling hopeful can help you develop a more open mind, which can help you access more possibilities, making it more likely you will find a resolution to your problems or a new way to live with whatever you face in the New Year.
As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.” So, let’s try to be more hopeful in 2021 because hope is the beginning of all that’s possible to make the world a better place for everyone.
Wishing all of you a Happy, Hopeful and Healthy New Year!!!!
-Tosha M. Owens, MA, APCC